Future Products

Biotech-enhanced fruits with market appeal

OSF is dedicated to producing new tree fruit varieties with a wide range of new, unique and beneficial traits. These include both agronomic and quality benefits, offering proven advantages throughout the value chain.

Nonbrowning tree fruits

OSF holds an exclusive worldwide license to technology for regulating expression of polyphenol oxidase (PPO) genes to control enzymatic browning in tree fruits. Using this technology, our expert science team was able to put PPO-regulation into practice in apples. And, while we have initially utilized this technique to develop nonbrowning Arctic® apples, reducing the expression of PPO in other fruits offers the potential for nonbrowning varieties of all kinds.

While we are busy in our labs developing new products, our focus remains on delivering Arctic® apples to market. Following a successful market introduction, we will then be positioned to share more on our latest innovations!

Beneficial agronomic traits

In addition to developing nonbrowning tree fruit varieties, OSF has been working on solutions to a number of challenges affecting crops such as apples, cherries, peaches and pears. Some of the traits currently under consideration include fire blight resistance in apples and pears, scab resistance in apples and plum pox virus resistance in peaches.

All of these traits have the potential to reduce meaningful losses for the produce supply chain, and in some cases, reduce the need for pesticide and disease control applications. Further details on these potential applications will become available as we make progress with our innovations. Just like for Arctic® apples, the testing required in advance of commercialization for these new products will be rigorous and extensive.